Flesh And Stone

by Richard Sennett

In FLESH AND STONE, Sennett examines the relationship between the human body and the urban environment it inhabits, looking at the differing attitudes to nudity, burial, sanctuary and urban planning in ancient Greece and Rome, Mediaeval and Renaissance Europe, and concluding with a fuller analysis of how the link between flesh and stone has altered with the advances in science and medicine. It is, as the author says in the introduction, "more than an historical catalogue of physical sensationsin urban space", offering fresh insights and ideas for anyone interested in the city or civic life.

Richard Sennett now works at the LSE where he runs their Cities Programme. His previous publications include his best-seller THE CORROSION OF CHARACTER. His next book, RESPECT: THE FORMATION OF CHARACTER IN A WORLD OF INEQUALITY, will be publishedby Allen Lane in January 2003.

Introduction - body and city: the passive body; the plan of the book; a personal note. Part 1 Powers of the voice and eye: nakedness - the citizen's body in Perikles' Athens; the cloak of darkness - the protections of ritual in Athens; the obsessive image - place and time in Hadrian's Rome; time in the body - early Christians in Rome. Part 2 Movements of the heart: comunity - the Paris of Jehan de Chelles; "each man is a devil to himself" - the paris of Humbert de Romans; fear of touching - the Jewish ghetto in Renaissance Venice. Part 3 Arteries and veins: moving bodies - Harvey's revolution; the body set free - Boullee's Paris; urban individualism - E.M. Forster's London. Conclusion: civic bodies - multi-cultural New York.